


Caught by Mistletoe

by Frumpologist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mistletoe, Misunderstanding Kisses, Post-War, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frumpologist/pseuds/Frumpologist
Summary: Harry is up to his old tricks as he watches the Marauder’s Map to see what a certain Slytherin gets up to at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 224
Collections: Harry/Draco Owlpost 2019





	Caught by Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy, Kiertorata! I was really motivated by the mistletoe prompt! I hope you enjoy! :)

Returning for NEWTs hadn’t been Harry’s idea, but rather one that the Ministry felt would lend to his placement in the Auror program. He wouldn’t need to complete a full year, not like so many others who had gone back to Hogwarts. Instead, Harry and the new Auror class that had fought in the war returned for one weekend over Christmas break to take their NEWT exams.

One final weekend of school and he’d be a full-fledged Auror recruit.

The sense of dread that filled Harry as he took his seat in the Great Hall was, unfortunately, something he’d been used to. The last time he’d tested there, a toad-like woman in pink made his life a living hell. For NEWTs, however, Professor Flitwick monitored the students and even offered him a bit of a smile as he passed by.

The theoretical part of the exam was easiest; he hadn’t spent an entire year with Hermione Granger and not learned a thing or two from her brilliant mind. What surprised him was how easy the practical exam had been. With a new wand, all of his spells left him with the kind of finesse that he’d always admired in far finer duelists.

Once testing was complete, dinner was feasted upon, and the halls of Hogwarts were emptied of its small number of students who remained for the holiday, Harry found himself sitting on an overstuffed armchair in a makeshift common room for NEWT students. He was surrounded by the oddest assortment of witches and wizards — though, he supposed he’d have to get used to it if he intended on becoming a fully fledged Auror alongside of them.

The one who caught his attention — who had  _ always _ caught his attention — was Draco Malfoy. Tall, blond, pale, and fit; his reserved eyes and tight lips seeming to pass judgment on the mismatched former-students as he gazed about the room. When those eyes landed on Harry, every muscle in his body tensed. Harry wetted his lips, forced a smile, and then flicked his gaze over to safer options.

“Hermione,” Harry said, and then cleared his throat as his friend’s name was caught. “Hermione, can you stop trying to review questions with everyone? You know we’re not allowed to give you any insight into the exam.”

She looked properly put out and huffed a breath. “It’s  _ not _ cheating. It’s utilizing all of my resources.”

Theo Nott laughed, loud and full, perhaps obnoxiously as his arm wound around Astoria’s shoulders. “Bloody Gryffindors are more Slytherin than we are these days.”

The tense murmurings through the group lightened considerably, and even Harry’s shoulders sagged under the relief that there would be no cross-house hexing in the foreseeable future. Blaise Zabini stood from his place beside Neville Longbottom, holding his hands in the air.

“Truth or dare,” Blaise said with a wolfish smile, though the rest of the students sitting around him groaned. “What? Come on, after this weekend we’ll all go our separate ways. It’s the first time in seven years at school together that we’ve not harassed one another — it’s a cause for celebration!”

“And we celebrate by drinking firewhiskey and divulging secrets or, worse, snogging one another in some twisted voyeuristic fantasy game?” Pansy asked from her place beside Luna, whose eyes landed on Harry. She grinned and waved and Harry lifted a hand and offered her a feeble smile in return.

“Indeed!” Blaise said, pulling his wand from his pocket and giving it a sharp flick. A soft yellow magic flitted through the space, winding around its occupants with a shimmery glow. “Entirely randomized, of course. Whomever the spell lands on goes first. And—” he withdrew a tiny vial from his pocket and held it up for the group to see, “— mustn’t forget the Veritaserum, to keep us honest.”

“Oh no, we  _ mustn’t _ ,” Draco whispered sarcastically, drawing Harry’s attention back to him. “Why ever would we want to keep our secrets in a room filled with bloody do-gooders who used to be our enemies?”

Harry sucked his lips between his teeth, fighting the urge to chuckle. Still, Draco’s eyes pinned him with an intense stare, but this time Harry didn’t look away. He looked different from the last time Harry had seen him at the end of the war; his face wasn’t as gaunt, the dark circles under his eyes were gone, and his lips were no longer chapped. Lips that were quirked at the corners as Harry pulled his gaze away and back to the startlingly bright eyes still watching.

The brilliant, yellow light wound itself around Harry. A sharp breath left him as he ran a hand absently through his thick, dark hair. The light settled just in front of him, growing brighter and brighter until it suddenly popped out of existence. Harry lifted his eyes and flicked his gaze around the room to find everyone staring back at him; Blaise with that ridiculous smile aimed in his direction.

“Potter, choose your victim,” Blaise said as he gestured around the room, where everyone was in various stages of settling into their seats as the game truly began.

Harry stared hard at Draco and watched the planes of his throat constrict, bobbing under the weight of a swallow. “Malfoy — truth or dare?”

In response, rather than speak, Draco stood from his chair and fled the room with striking finesse. He left absolutely silence in his wake.

Harry shuffled up from his seat after a moment of staring at the door that Draco left through, and ignored where Hermione tugged at his shirt to keep him from leaving after him. He couldn’t be swayed however, as he ran from the room after Draco and paused to glance both ways down the long corridor — no sign of the other man in sight.

“Bollocks,” Harry exclaimed as his foot connected with the hard, stone wall.

“ _ Well _ , I’ll say, young chap! How very uncouth!”

Harry glanced up to find a portly man standing in an ancient-looking portrait, a ghastly expression on his old, pudgy face. He narrowed his eyes as Harry apologized softly and moved down the corridor. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a ratty, old bit of parchment and unfolded it until it read  _ Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs present: The Marauder’s Map _ .

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” Harry tapped his wand to the parchment and watched as the castle sprawled across it in inky detail. There weren’t a lot of footprints in the corridors, and it took him several minutes to find the feet that he’d been searching for. When he spotted the name  _ Draco Malfoy _ in an old abandoned classroom, Harry muttered, “Aha!” and stole off in the direction of the classroom.

The thing that struck Harry the most wasn’t that Draco was hiding out in a classroom, nor that he’d swept away from the group without so much as a word, or that he’d stared at Harry until the little hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stood on end. No, the odd thing was watching Draco’s feet on the map, in that old classroom; not moving, not pacing — just seemingly standing still in the center of the room as if he were stuck.

Harry slowed as he approached the class and stuffed the map back into his pocket. He stole a steadying breath as his hand wrapped around the old, brass door knob. The door swung open, and he wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him in the midst of a darkened room. Draco Malfoy, in charcoal trousers and a black sweater with an emerald green snake stitched into the chest, stood rooted to the spot underneath a sprig of something green. Harry’s eyebrows shot upwards as a lopsided smile overtook his lips.

“Outsmarted by a plant?” Harry asked, trying to hold in his laughter.

Draco scowled, eyes narrowed. “Fuck off, Potter.”

Harry glanced up to the plant currently holding Draco hostage, and then back down to Draco’s pinched face. He shrugged his shoulders and turned back for the door. If the prat wanted to stay in the middle of a classroom until someone inevitably found him, then who was Harry to — 

“Potter,” Draco sighed, voice heavy and filled with annoyance.

Harry didn’t turn right away. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and centered his chin over his chest. He’d wait. For Draco, for this, he’d wait. He moved slowly, purposefully, back towards the current bane of his existence, and cocked his head to the side. Waiting patiently.

“I’m stuck by mistletoe,” Draco muttered under his breath. “Do you think you could—”

“Could I what?” Harry moved impossibly closer, warm breath fanning over and fluttering a small chunk of his blond hair at his cheek.

“Would you —  _ please _ — help me out of this situation?” Draco huffed, cheek tinted pink under Harry’s stare. Harry found he quite liked that color on him.

Once more, Harry lifted his chin and looked at the mistletoe. He felt his own face heat up as he considered what helping Draco would mean. All those nights of watching, waiting, for him to make a move, to do anything at all that might help quash the things he was feeling for his childhood enemy. And now, this —  _ this _ is what they’d been brought to. Draco Malfoy waiting to be saved by The Chosen One. An unwitting smile lifted Harry’s lips, and he raised his hand to the side of Draco’s face.

“Pott—”

Whatever Draco was about to say was cut off as Harry’s lips pressed gently into his. It was firm at first, meant to be swift and purposeful, simply to dislodge Draco from his predicament. But, as Draco’s body relaxed and his lips turned soft against his, Harry’s fingers curled over Draco’s jaw and the kiss turned urgent. Tongues sought the feel of one another, moans swallowed, oxygen forgotten. It lasted forever, or perhaps for only a long moment. When Harry finally realized what it was he’d actually done, and for how long he’d done it, he pulled back with a gasp and deep, crimson blush.

Draco didn’t move, even though Harry was certain the magic of the mistletoe was satisfied. Instead, he blinked several times and licked his bottom lip absently. “I  _ meant _ that you should use your wand to negate the spell,” he whispered in a strained voice.

Harry swallowed hard and tried to arrange his trousers without using his hands and drawing attention to precisely what the kiss had done to him. He ran a hand through his hair and let out an awkward sort of laugh. “Oh. Right. Can you… move?”

He seemed to take a moment, taking stock of his person, but Draco didn’t move. Shaking his head, Draco’s heavy-lidded eyes darkened. “‘Fraid not.”

A thrill shot through Harry. He tilted his head to the side and laughed — he didn’t believe it for a second.

“Liar,” Harry whispered as he shot forward and crashed into Draco’s body with his hand wrapped eagerly into his hair, and smirked against the blond’s lips.

  
Truth or not, Harry didn’t need Veritaserum to know this was precisely where they both wanted to be for the rest of the night.


End file.
